Anyone had any experience with carbon offsetting payments. Soil capital in particular?

[Grass And Grain]

Basically it's like the benefits system.

Someone who's worked all their life and banked their earnings (PP with high OM) isn't entitled to benefits.

Someone who hasn't done a stroke of work in their life and spent any cash by smoking fags..... They can get their social security benefits (carbon payments).

The polluter is getting rewarded from an immediate start. They should get their soils back to 10% before getting any cash, as they're the ones who've contributed to climate change. They're the ones who have caused the problem. You can't pay them, but not pay the ones who have been doing all the right things.

 

[Huno]

The arable farmers are merely putting back the Carbon which they've wrongfully emitted.

Compared to PP, they need to get their soils back to 10% OM before they should get any payment.

The arable farmers are the ones who have emitted loads of C since 1940. They need to buy that back from the PP farmers who've been storing it, before they should be able to get any money.

It's like only paying benefits to those who have historically polluted, and offering nothing to those who've not polluted.

There's no denying the figures. Grassland soils are 10+% OM and increasing in depth. Arable soils struggle for 4% and are shrinking. Take a look at height of fields compared to height of the roads in some of the fen areas. Fields are a few feet down compared to the roads.

These soil carbon payment models are only prepared to pay the worst offenders.

Yes that statement is completely true and fair and i cant wait to restore my arable soils back to 10% SOM.. at that point they are sustainable so long as i dont return to my previous carbon stripping practices..Win win... i certainly wont be paying any livestock farmer especially as they have enjoyed my cheap cereal concentrates and straw for decades as i ripped up my soils for max yield to cover overheads in a race to the bottom (2% SOM) for some and no soil left.. Hence the PP grain fed livestock folks now have the SOM in their soils... enjoy

 

[Spencer]

. Take a look at height of fields compared to height of the roads in some of the fen areas. Fields are a few feet down compared to the roads.

Might the roads have been built up with the bit of stone and gravel..?

 

[Huno]

Basically it's like the benefits system.

Someone who's worked all their life and banked their earnings (PP with high OM) isn't entitled to benefits.

Someone who hasn't done a stroke of work in their life and spent any cash by smoking fags..... They can get their social security benefits (carbon payments).

The polluter is getting rewarded from an immediate start. They should get their soils back to 10% before getting any cash, as they're the ones who've contributed to climate change. They're the ones who have caused the problem. You can't pay them, but not pay the ones who have been doing all the right things.

Yup.. that is about right but life is not fair and most arable farmers were brainwashed by Gov and big business to deliver more and more each year.. I call it compensation for mis selling us for decades and it is reversable in just 10yrs.. call it dole if you want

 

[Huno]

Yes a bit but the soils in that part of the world were burned away really fast with massive pub yields aswell!!

Might the roads have been built up with the bit of stone and gravel..?

 

[Huno]

Yes a bit but the soils in that part of the world were burned away really fast with massive pub yields aswell!!

50 to 60 tonne yields of sugar beet dont get replaced with fresh air!!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

our model considers PP as having reached its equilibrium, whereas arable soils can continue to sequester. However the DD farmer will have to continue direct drilling to generate carbon certificates, we can't generate certificates on what they have done previously.

That assumption has pervaded soil science for many years but is starting to be shown to be wrong under certain management. Once that becomes accepted the CFT will be shown for the biased tool it is and have to be largely rewritten.

This is one of the reasons it's a hopeless carbon calculator for grassland business.

Its all 'models'. It has no basis in reality whatsoever. Its just a computer program that works on assumptions put in one end and some 'data' churned out the other. Their model assumes PP is in carbon equilibrium, therefore it is, as far as they are concerned. The model has spoken, its word is law..........reality and truth can go hang.

Any model is only as accurate as the assumptions underpinning it.

I've read quite a few academic reports recently around farming and food production that use assumptions that are plain wrong (and so the conclusions are valueless). You need to have actually farmed to spot it though and very few academics in these areas have.

and as the saying goes..."all models are designed to fail one day."

"all models are wrong, some are useful"

20yrs is actually the total period of time to fully restore carbon in soil if you didnt remove any inbetween.. years 5 to 10 are still the max sequestration period and then it tails off again yrs 11 to 20... as mentioned before this data has been around for decades before Cool Farm Tool type algorythms..
If the soil "battery" was empty in yr 1 it could be 80% charged by year 10 and fully charged by year 20 in arable degraded soils..
PP is a battery at about 40% charge hence why it is less appealing to support with carbon credits and probably not worth applying for 20 to 30 quid per Ha to meet the rules..
It just doesnt fit commercially or in reality either

The 20 years figure comes from past research that looked at grassland management which nobody here would recognise as "Regenerative".

If you carefully read the papers frequently used to "debunk" Allan Savory's claims then you quickly realise that NONE of them actually investigate holistic management. They all run some sort of basic rotational grazing instead. It's no wonder they reach the conclusions they do, their baseline is wrong. They argue that making the management adaptive isn't possible in an academic study because, well, it's adaptive (and so not fixed) . That's the bloody point, it's the adaptive nature that drives the results.

There's actually plenty of carbon released from grassland farms in the UK. How about all the leys that are reseeded every 3 - 5 years with deeply intensive inversion cultivation?

@Soil Capital how about if a pp farmer adopts holistic management / Amp grazing / Management intensive grazing. Surely they could then prove additionally for so long as they kept doing it?

 

[Huno]

That assumption has pervaded soil science for many years but is starting to be shown to be wrong under certain management. Once that becomes accepted the CFT will be shown for the biased tool it is and have to be largely rewritten.

This is one of the reasons it's a hopeless carbon calculator for grassland business.


Any model is only as accurate as the assumptions underpinning it.

I've read quite a few academic reports recently around farming and food production that use assumptions that are plain wrong (and so the conclusions are valueless). You need to have actually farmed to spot it though and very few academics in these areas have.


"all models are wrong, some are useful"


The 20 years figure comes from past research that looked at grassland management which nobody here would recognise as "Regenerative".

There's actually plenty of carbon released from grassland farms in the UK. How about all the leys that are reseeded every 3 - 5 years with deeply intensive inversion cultivation?

Correct when you deep inversion tillage and powerharrow it you will lose alot of the SOM and other stuff very very quickly thereby undoing the benefits of a 3 yr ley very quickly even if you replant grasses not cereal... its not an easy fix when economics for farmers to higher and higher yields of everything just to pay the very high fixed annual costs of farming in the UK.. without support this will intensify

 

[Grass And Grain]

I'm pulling people's legs on this thread, but it's a funny old world where those who've contributed to global warming by decimated their soil carbon, are the only ones who can currently get paid (to put it back).

Those who've done the right thing and maintained high soil OM are being offered nothing.

Polluter gets paid to fix their ways.

Non-polluted gets nothing but a pat on the back.

 

[Post Driver]

Any chance fencers can hitch on the bandwagon? If I go back to spacing my stakes at 6ft centres, can I get paid additionality for the extra stored carbon in my fences?

 

[delilah]

It is not a scam.. it really works and can be scientifically measured but PP is a poor cousin sadly

Lets say that by this time next year all UK farmland, PP included, is signed up to a carbon scheme.
Is anyone on here seriously telling me that their individual business, or the industry as a whole, will be financially better off ?
No. All it will mean is that by embracing the concept, farming will have given the cartel the green light to demand the carbon be handed over as a condition of selling their output.
Not content with selling its soul to the cartel, farming is now in a headlong rush to sell its soil.
So, yes, you are right, scam isn't the right word. It's muppetry.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I'm pulling people's legs on this thread, but it's a funny old world where those who've contributed to global warming by decimated their soil carbon, are the only ones who can currently get paid (to put it back).

Those who've done the right thing and maintained high soil OM are being offered nothing.

Polluter gets paid to fix their ways.

Non-polluted gets nothing but a pat on the back.

Obviously its all bollox but I suppose the idea is that you pay people to improve themselves and bring them up to the standards of say grassland farmers.

I'm no tiller through and through and concede its not a replacement for permanent pasture but it is as good a production system for combinable crops as I can think of.

 

[Huno]

Lets say that by this time next year all UK farmland, PP included, is signed up to a carbon scheme.
Is anyone on here seriously telling me that their individual business, or the industry as a whole, will be financially better off ?
No. All it will mean is that by embracing the concept, farming will have given the cartel the green light to demand the carbon be handed over as a condition of selling their output.
Not content with selling its soul to the cartel, farming is now in a headlong rush to sell its soil.
So, yes, you are right, scam isn't the right word. It's muppetry.

Like Fozzie Bear Kermit the and Miss Piggy??

 

[onesiedale]

Like Fozzie Bear Kermit the and Miss Piggy??

no - the grumpy old farts sat in the box!

 

[e3120]

Well, I've been playing with the CFT this morning. It seems that you can make it tell you any answer you want.

The carbon figures are much more attractive if the stock are grazed on PP and the temporary grass is all used for silage. Grazing the TG doesn't seem to be right thing to do. God forbid you put anything back.

There are also some slightly counter-intuitive things in the cropping section. Retaining residues or applying organic manures is harmful due to CO2e from NOx emissions (as far as I can gather). It appears not all methods of building SOM are to be encouraged, which would suggest that measurement of SOM is pointless if you cannot tell where it came from.

Not to worry, if you started applying organic manures 19 years ago. The result swings from emissions of ~150kg CO2e per tonne of grain to -100kg; sequestration appears on be top.

So it seems the best practice for me is to just grow TG and WW, remove all the vegetation in both phases, make sure that I don't apply muck in at least one year in 20 and graze the nasty cattle on the nasty PP using as much N as I like. So much for sustainable agriculture!

 

[Spencer]

Any chance fencers can hitch on the bandwagon? If I go back to spacing my stakes at 6ft centres, can I get paid additionality for the extra stored carbon in my fences?

Now your getting the idea

 

[Lincsman]

Are these payments sort of backdated? Ie you started dd last year after plough combi drill for years, or do you plough this coming autumn and then start the carbon trading?

 

[Huno]

 

[Huno]

Happy New Year naughty farmers

 

[Huno]

Good to see i might have frightened the Banks Cargill rep from selling premediated pre sold carbon credits away from our farmers? Globalised Capitalism at its best to try to sell farmers something before they even do it and worse still embed it in the product they are selling back into the food chain.. Thank you Frontier UK and goodnight.. outsource somewhere else my corp rat friends